I Would Rather Go Play in Hell
by The Wheezing Dragon
Summary: When begging Chase for another chance at being his apprentice, Jack is first charged with being his slave. He knows he can handle chores... It's the punishment for not doing them he's not sure he can take. One-shot. Warning for gore, torture, abuse, and implied non-con.


It was not that the youngster had always imagined himself at the feet of an esteemed, malevolent warrior. True, he had yearned for years to become the servant of his idol – if only for a short while – to learn of his ways, and to become a ruler, himself. He had, however, always thought that his initiation into the Heylin to be considerably less traumatizing.

"And why is it that you believe your service to me would not be reward enough?" a youthful man with long, jet black hair and a reptilian predator's eyes asked of him.

For a while, all the boy could do was stammer pitifully. It was bad enough that he was being interrogated with spears to his back. But there was also the factor of being suspended from ceiling by the rope trap that had spelled his demise.

"I-I think it's a reward! It's f-fine! Honest! I… I've always wanted to be your apprentice…" the boy cried, his face rapidly pinkening from being hung upside down. His bright red eyes welled with tears of terror, and he was certain he could feel one of the Heylin Master's guards deliberately pushing the tip of a spear into his spine. He whimpered and struggled, flailing his arms uselessly.

This display evidently proved entertaining to the elder of the two males, and, even in the darkness of the throne room, one could see the corners of his tight, almost lipless mouth curling upwards in a small smile. A chill went down the boy's spine as the other man made eye contact with him, revealing an almost bored gaze through dark, almond-shaped eyes. As he strode down the steps from his seat and into the light that streamed weakly through the thick stained glass windows of the chamber, his captive could see that he was dressed in light bronze armor with black and green padding. There was no questioning that the master was clearly a warrior, but the condition of his smooth, olive skin and his general physique hinted that the man could not have been out of his twenties. Nonetheless, there was an air about him that suggested he was not human – at least, not entirely.

The younger boy cried out in surprise when the master grasped him by his short, red hair and pulled him closer so that he could see the slit pupils and the black sclera of his eyes. He fell to stammering again, though, as the man's mouth parted into a downright terrifying grin full of pointed teeth.

"You really think it's fine, Spicer?" he asked, his words practically dripping with venom. "You are certain you can endure what I have in mind? After all, you do have a rather impressive track record of _cowardice_…" he now bared all his teeth to his stuttering captive, and wrenched his head sideways so he could place his fangs to his neck.

"_NO! NO! Please don't!_" the redhead screamed, tears now dripping up his forehead and falling to the tiles below. "_PLEASE! I'LL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT! Please don't hurt me!_"

The raven-haired man smirked, though the boy could not see, and sank the very points of his teeth into the youth's flesh, making him cry harder and scream louder.

"You really want to be a slave? After all that talk of ruling the world?" he grinned and murmured into his throat. "You've really lowered your standards, Jack…" He bit him harder, this time drawing blood.

"_GAH! YES!_" the boy shrieked, though he dared not thrash now for fear of deepening the older male's bite. He sobbed as he felt the spears in his back sinking through his cloak and vest, right into his shoulders. "_Hnngh! Whatever you want!_"

"It'd be so much easier if you would just take the punishment for your intrusion. It would spare you the _real_ agony…"

"_MASTER CHASE!_" Jack wailed in desperation, and his breath hitched in his throat as he felt the other's teeth leaving his neck. Even the blades were pulled from his back. He winced as his gaze fell to the floor below, and he could see the little crimson spots that had resulted from the abuse.

It was not long before his attention was demanded from the reptilian-eyed warrior again, and he felt his hair being gripped in a gloved hand like a vice.

"Say that again," the man said slowly.

"…M-master…" the little redhead whimpered, mucus and saliva audibly obstructing his words at first.

"Finish."

"I'll do anything you ask… Master Chase Young."

There was an unsettling pause, and Jack could only watch with growing dread as his master's face was split with the same wicked, fanged smile.

"Good," Chase smirked, presently drawing a broadsword from an ornate scabbard at his hip. In a flash, he had cut his captive out of the rope trap, and let him tumble headfirst onto the bloodied floor. "You can start by cleaning up that mess. Keep in mind that any disobedience will be met with dire consequences." He then nodded to the guards and growled to them, "Get him out of those rags when he's finished."

x

Over the next few weeks, Jack became well acquainted with the grounds of his master's dwelling. Or, rather, he became very literally acquainted with having his face shoved down on the ground when he was not already on his hands and knees to clean it. Chase had made it clear that the guards and servants were permitted to treat the boy however they wished, so Jack had subsequently been used as a punching bag, a door mat, a foot stool, and several other far less pleasant things. He had had to visit the palace's imprisoned surgeon multiple times a day to get arrows removed or to have his face, back, and belly sewn up. He had even gone to bed several times crying and hungry, as Chase withheld meals from him if he had not served him satisfactorily.

But it was worth it, the lad told himself as he now clutched his aching midsection. The stitches just beneath his form-fitting black tunic burned like mad, and he had to take a break from scrubbing animal entrails from the otherwise empty dining hall table. Chase's warriors had been ordered to take turns using him for target practice just the other day, and Doctor Tadayoshi had spent hours gingerly dislodging throwing star's from the boy's flesh. "A regular Frankenstein's monster," he had called him when he finished stitching him back together. Jack winced, trying not to concentrate on the pain, or his hunger, for that matter. He could not give up. If he were to let his suffering show too much, Chase would never call his debt off. He would never let him be his apprentice.

He was about to return to his chore, when slow, thudding footsteps sounded behind him, and he turned slowly, trying to put on his best face to prove his tenacity. But his pale countenance fell as he realized that the approaching warrior was not his master, but a guard. He was one of the two that had held a spear to his back while Chase had interrogated and subdued him.

This immense, musclebound creature, appearing to be neither entirely human nor animal, stood at least eight feet tall, and sported heavy red armor with elaborate gold accents. The parts of his arms and legs that were not guarded by metal and leather were covered in bristling black hair, like that of a boar. His face was mostly shrouded by his helmet's golden face shield, but one could see cruel, beady, cyan-green eyes leering out from the holes in the metal, and a wicked, snaggle-toothed smile cracked open his snout below that. Where the warrior's booted feet should have been, there were large, cloven hooves, clunking heavily against the tiles with each step, in the same fashion that wooden sandals or sparring shoes would have.

Jack instinctively backed away, thinking he might be in the creature's way to the leftovers of the feast. "S-sorry. Just cleanin' up… Th-there's still some food over there if you want any."

The warrior simply stared at him, its glimmering green eyes lighting up as though the lad's voice alone had kindled some sort of interest. The redhead backed up further, his ruby eyes darting back and forth, looking to see if there was a door he was strong enough to open nearby. Much to his horror, however, the warrior stepped over towards him, its eyes seeming to glow more strongly with every bone-rattling step.

"Y-you're hungry, right?" Jack asked, almost pleadingly.

The monster responded in something akin to Mandarin, and spoke in a voice so low and gravelly, it made the boy's bruised flesh crawl. He extended a clawed hand in a motion that suggested he wished to stroke Jack's backswept crest of red hair, but the lad ducked out of his reach, cowering and trying to scramble away.

He felt the creature grasp him by his throat anyway. And it would be hours before he would let him go.

x

It was early the next morning, some hours before the sun would rise, when Jack hung, suspended before his master once more. This time, he was trussed up by both legs from the rafters by iron chains and cuffs, the edges of which dug into the delicate, white skin of his feet and ankles. His hands were allowed to hang free, mostly because his master deduced he did not pose a threat, even when given a fighting chance. His vest and tunic had been ripped wide open in the front, exposing Doctor Tadayoshi's handiwork; long, curving seams and a hundred little stitches neatly bound together the split flesh of Jack's snowy abdomen and thorax. He had already been in the darkness of the lower chambers for some time, and the servants in the cellars just above were complaining about the sounds of crying coming from the dungeon. Master Chase had gone to reassure them that it was all part of some training, but as he returned to Jack now, he looked absolutely furious.

His amber reptile eyes blazed in the dank confines, and his raven hair practically bristled with rage as he seized his pitiable slave by his throat, bruising him again.

"You failed to complete the tasks I assigned you, worm," he hissed, "I will ask you once more. Why did you flee to the surgeon's cell before you were done with the dining hall?"

"I already told you, my stitches came undone!" the redhead wept.

Chase slapped the boy across the face, his claws tearing open his left cheek and splattering little pinpoint dots of blood on the stone floor.

"What a shame… A whole month as my servant, and it appears that I still cannot get you to stop lying," the Heylin master looked blatantly ashamed, at first, but his tone remained snide, cold, and condescending. He withdrew something from a utility pocket in his tunic now, "I did not want to have to do this, but you really love to make things difficult for everyone, don't you, Jack?"

Still stunned by the blow to his already battered face, it took the lad a moment to realize that Chase was holding something right in front of his eyes. When his mind registered what it was, he recoiled in terror.

"You'll be cleaning up this mess, as well, when I'm finished with you," the raven-head smiled, his tone presently changing from bitter to sickly sweet as he waved an oversized iron needle before Jack's garnet red eyes.

The metal spike suddenly disappeared, gone from the boy's sight as Chase expertly swished it through the air and over Jack's stomach in a fluid arc. There was a soft popping sound, and Jack's belly erupted in pain. It took him a moment or two to realize that the popping was actually more of a snapping, and when he craned his neck to look up at his belly, his face became splattered with crimson syrup. Chase had split open half his sutures. Thick, almost gooey blood slipped down his dehydrated body, onto his cheeks, and down onto the floor. He writhed weakly and screamed as Chase stuck the needle into the open wound to dig around.

"Mmm… My, my. You're right. They do look undone," he managed amid his slave's wailing, "Oh, it appears the good doctor missed something. Right… here."

_Pop-pop-pop-pop_ went the last of the stitches down Jack's white stomach, giving in easily to Chase's excruciating proficiency. The boy was certain he felt his very organs ready to spill out through the gashes. It was all he could do not to shriek profanity in front of his master, who proceeded to finger the new opening without restraint.

"You won't die from wounds like these, that much is certain," the Heylin master continued. "Our good physician will put you back together, as always… It's just so unfortunate he cannot cure you of your compulsive lying." He seethed.

"_Please STOP!_" Jack sobbed, "_Master, please!_"

The outburst earned him a round of slaps and punches that blacked both his eyes, and sent showers of tears, saliva, and blood arcing through the musty air.

"You do not deserve to ask anything of me," Chase hissed, his countenance contorting, and his fanged maw twisted into a frightening snarl as he seized one of Jack's hands. He brought the gore-stained needle to the boy's index finger, its vermilion length glimmering threateningly against his pale skin in the dark, "But I will be generous and ask you one last time. Why did you disobey me?"

"I… I… I had to see the doctor."

"Stupid boy," his master spat.

Between the throbbing and searing of his midsection and the aching of his eyes and cheeks, it was difficult for the lad to register that the needle had made its way through his finger pad, under the nail, and into the bone. The sight of it alone was surreal, and the pain nearly sent him over the edge, making him spiral, crying and moaning and begging to go unconscious. What came next was so tangibly sharp, so demanding of his attention and senses, it was as though he briefly forgot everything else he had endured during his stay as the Heylin master's slave, and full, crippling agony razed his digits. Chase had produced another needle, and was driving it into the little redhead's middle finger.

All Jack could manage was a strangled, high-pitched wail. It did nothing to stave off further punishment. His master brought forth another needle… and then another… and another. It was not long before the weeping boy had both his extremities adorned with cruel, metal spikes, and he hung, trembling, desperately trying to withdraw his bleeding, punctured fingers and hold them closer to his slashed-open body. It was while he was suspended so, silently praying for death to take him so he could escape this torment, that an even more horrifying reality set in.

Chase was not going to make him his apprentice. The one creature in the world he had consistently looked up to – no, _revered_ – despised him. There was no way around it. It was clear that he had been happier in this last month, torturing and using him, than he had ever been when the boy had been buzzing about him like a gnat, alternately begging for his mercy and attention. Even now, the master was smiling.

"Next are your toes," Chase told him, "And then I will have to get very _creative_."

"It was your guard!" Jack blurted out. "An elite guard! H-he held me down…"

Painful silence ensued for a second or two. Chase looked taken aback, not that his slave could see it through the new bout of tears that streamed from him.

"_I lied! I lied! I lied!_ _Happy now?_" the boy screamed, "Do whatever you want!_ I don't care anymore!_" His last phrase became cracked and strangled, and the noises that his suffering elicited devolved into hysterical shrieks and whimpers.

For a moment, it seemed that Master Young was unsure of what to do. His olive face rapidly contorted into a number of expressions, but all of them conveyed a strong mix of wrath and disgust. He marched out of the vile, coppery-smelling chamber, so that one could hear his boots and armor clunking even amid Jack's cries. Moments later, two female servants raced into the room, and set to wrenching the boy free of his restraints. Though he was on the verge of losing consciousness as they set him down on the floor, he was sure he could hear them telling him that Tadayoshi was on his way, and he thought he heard Chase ordering an execution to be carried out just upstairs.

x

The doctor had said that Jack's hands would heal nicely, but only if allowed enough rest. That suited the boy just fine. There were obviously many other injuries that had been accounted for; some needed to be fixed with more sutures or wraps, while others would take years and years to fade.

"All in due time," the doctor bowed to the wounded redhead, and retreated from the chamber with his chains and collar rattling.

Jack curled up and nodded to him, cocooning himself deeper into his blankets as he did. His lodgings had been upgraded considerably since Tadayoshi had last seen him, so he now had a real bed to sleep in. Furthermore, he was to receive four square meals a day to make up for being starved, not that he could hold utensils of any sort with his hands bandaged into mittens, and he had to rely on some help.

He smiled softly as Chase scooped another tangle of noodles and pork into his mouth, and he lowered his head, blushing while he chewed and swallowed.

"You are absolved of your impertinence, my apprentice," the raven-head told him as he combed his clawed fingers through his fiery hair. "But a little humility never hurts, does it?"


End file.
